Calvin Ridley is one of the NFL draft’s most talented receivers, and its biggest mystery

I will admit that Alabama wide receiver Calvin Ridley remains somewhat of a mystery to me.

And a lot of that isn’t his fault.

But instead of talking about his question marks right off the bat, I’d much rather talk about his positives first.

For one thing, it’s pretty clear on tape that Ridley is fast.

I mean really fast.

When he had opportunities to run deep routes matched up one-on-one with a cornerback, Ridley was able to consistently get separation down the field.

As of the time of writing this, he hasn’t run at the combine yet, and I don’t know if he will or not, but I don’t think anybody who has watched him play is going to question his speed on the field.

Ridley also created separation with his route running, which you don’t always see from wide receivers coming out of college. He had a knack for leaning just enough in one direction to get the defensive back favoring that way. Then, he’d effortlessly break out in the opposite direction without ever losing his balance.

If the cornerback couldn’t jam Ridley at the line, you might as well break out the butter and strawberry jam because dude was toast.

Another plus was Alabama had Ridley lined up all over the place, and he ran all different kinds of routes, from crossers to skinny posts. He should be comfortable in the slot or out wide once he gets to the league.

In fact, he will probably benefit greatly going to a team where the offensive coordinator continues to move him around a lot. That team would likely benefit greatly, too.

At 6’1 and 190 pounds, Ridley won’t ever be mistaken for a “big” receiver like Mike Evans, but he showed on tape he is a willing, if not always very successful, blocker as well.

Let me be clear, there was a ton to like about Ridley in the four games I watched. I think he has a lot of potential.

At the same time, I have to acknowledge some things I’m still unsure about after watching four games.

Believe me, I am sensitive to criticizing a top wide receiver prospect out of Alabama after I was a little skeptical about how explosive Amari Cooper would be in the NFL, only to have him ball out as a rookie.

However, the tape is the tape.

One of the reasons I’m not totally sure about Ridley is there were six missed opportunities for explosive plays in the games I watched that were wasted because of off-target throws, non-throws, and, in one case, a pass interference committed by a defensive back who had no shot of keeping up with Ridley down the field on a fade route.

Count ‘em with me:

One ...

Two ...

Three ...

Four ...

Five ...

Six.

These plays show, again, Ridley can get down the field in a hurry, but we don’t get to see him actually catch the ball, unfortunately.

Judge for yourself how much of a sure thing you think those plays are, but for me I don’t believe in sure things when it comes to catching the football anymore (Thanks, NFL replay officials!). That is especially true for deep balls.

Maybe I would have assumed Ridley would make those catches, if he didn’t have two and a half drops in those four games. That may not sound like a lot, but they were enough to concern me.

I say two and a half because one of the drops wasn’t an easy catch at all. It was a fade route from the slot against Georgia in the National Championship game where Ridley had to try to jump over the defensive back to catch it in the end zone.

He did get both hands on the ball and he did almost secure it against his body as he fell, but, ultimately, the ball squirted out before he hit the turf for an incompletion. The truth of the matter is, you kinda expect any legit NFL prospect at wide receiver to catch the easy passes anyway, but when you are talking about a probable first-round pick, what usually separates them is the catches they make that most receivers can’t.

So I gave Ridley a half a drop because I’m being generous, but for me that’s a catch I would have liked to see him haul in.

That brings me to another thing that concerns me and that is the fact that none of Ridley’s 20 catches in the four games I watched were on plays where a defensive back was in position to contest the throw.

Oh, he got hit right after he caught it a couple of times and hung on to the ball, which is admirable, but when it comes to making a a back shoulder fade catch or just a catch where the defensive back was right there in his hip pocket, there just weren’t any examples of those in the games I watched.

On the other hand, the half a drop I pointed out and one of the other drops were on contested throws.

The other drop was on a play where an offensive lineman crossed in front of Ridley right as he was trying to catch the ball on a screen pass.

Ridley is going to have to make contested catches in the NFL if he wants to be successful, even with his speed. I am not saying he can’t do it, I’m simply stating the fact I didn’t see it happen in those four games.

One last, maybe minor, thing I saw that concerned me was Ridley getting jammed several times at the line of scrimmage when he tried to get a release against bump and run.

One time it was very noticeable because the quarterback looked to be trying to throw Ridley the ball. When he saw that Ridley was on lock, the quarterback took off running up the field.

Honestly, I don’t know of many teams that run a lot of legit bump and run anymore in the NFL. It’s not like Ridley didn’t have other plays where he was able to beat a jam, so I’m not tripping too hard on it.

But it was definitely noted.

At the end of the day, going by what I saw on tape, Ridley certainly has the physical traits of a first-round wide receiver. He has game-breaker type speed. He’s a really good route runner. He has very good hands most of the time. He’s also around the same size as Cooper was coming out.

I would have liked to have seen him make more contested catches, and I would have loved to have seen him actually have the opportunity to catch the ball on some of those plays when he was open down the field. But there were still plenty of positives to take away from his tape.

I would need to watch more games to really be convinced to take Ridley high in the first round, but he is certainly, at the least, first-round worthy. I also believe Ridley’s best days are almost assuredly ahead of him as long as he is drafted by a team that has a quarterback who can get the ball to him accurately down the field. If a team is looking for a wideout who can take the top off the defense consistently, then Ridley might be just what the doctor ordered.

Since I don’t have access to all-22 for college football games I use the next best thing for my draft profiles and go to Draft Breakdown where they post the TV copy of a bunch of top prospects’ games already cut up and ready to go. Because Draft Breakdown only had three games for Calvin Ridley, I also had to track down the National Championship game against Georgia with good old Google.

For the purposes of this breakdown I watched Ridley play against FSU, Fresno State, LSU, and Georgia. Those represented the first, second, ninth, and 14th games on Alabama’s schedule last season, respectively.